NFP and contraception

[razredge]

That’s why you are a dissenter. Further, Pastor Aeternus is clear, and there is nothing widespread about the dogma, it is very precise.

False. I say nothing of the kind, the dogma is very accurate, and the infallible papal definitions against contraception this century are in Casti Connubii, 1930, and Humanae Vitae, 1968 (required because of the intrusion of the Pill). Thus papal infallible definitions on faith and morals are infrequent, one meaning of “rare”.

Ok, whatever you say - you’re the expert. One question, was Humani Generis infallible?

Lots of people (even clergy) sharing an opinion doesn’t necessarily make it a fact. Woyjtyla was using rhetoric to make a point. He didn’t actually believe that God was on the side of the Protestant churches when Catholicism taught against contraception.

Of course not, but it does show that the supposed ‘intrinsic moral evil’ of contraception is not apparent to the vast majority of Catholics - unlike say abortion or murder.

Woyjtyla was suggesting the implications of the Church changing its stance on artificial contraception. (Though as Chrono has brought up, the Church has already changed it’s stance seeing as it allowed NFP which was also condemned by the Church Fathers)

What are these moral reasons you’ve heard for the Church prohibiting artificial contraception?

The procreative/unitive argument and that the Pill acts as an abortifacient (which is false since worse happens under NFP)

Or the Commission’s statement lacked any good reasons for allowing contraception. They essentially said that NFP separates sex and reproduction (almost accurate-it really p(name removed by moderator)oints the times when nature has separated the two), that birth control should be used with good reason, and restated the commonly held Protestant view that marriage needs to be fruitful only in a general sense. They just didn’t seem to grasp the theology behind the Catholic position, and the Commission’s statement-wow, talk about verbiage!

Gee, you are close minded - NFP does separate sex and reproduction!, p(name removed by moderator)ointing or no p(name removed by moderator)ointing (plus to do this p(name removed by moderator)ointing requires modern science just like the Pill)

At least their statement was better than the minority statement which basically spelled out that they couldn’t change teaching due to the implications it would have on infallibility.

Plus only 4 priests (out of 16), 2 bishops (out of 9), 1 cardinal (out of 7 - who also opposed religious liberty and separation of Church & state) opposed the majority verdict (mainly due to infallibility)
So once again, your views on the morality of artificial contraception are in the minority here.

Call me a sceptic, but there may be more to these stories than what’s available on Wikipedia. If these popes sinned and doubted, does it change the truth? Granted, if your belief in papal infallibility is sketchy, you may find truth changes.

Possibly, but if there was - someone would amend it, you don’t have articles on Catholic topics written without the involvement of Catholics. But if you can check their citations and come up with anything they’ve missed, then please share.

And the truth does change, the truth of slavery, usury, purpose of sex etc. have all changed.

Sure, I was just pointing out that Church leaders have been given divine authority since biblical times. The concept of an infallible leader is not without prescedent.

Sure, but the divine authority to preach the Gospel, cast out demons and forgive sins doesn’t get you to divine infallibility

False.
The Fathers fell into no error here.
Your first error is in disregarding the mandate of Jesus, the Son of God, in installing Peter as the first Pope with His authority.
All four promises to Peter alone:
“You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church.” (Mt 16:18)
“The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”(Mt 16:18)
“I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven." ( Mt 16:19)
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” (Mt 16:19)

Sole authority:
“Strengthen your brethren.” (Lk 22:32)
“Feed My sheep.”(Jn 21:17).

Again, it takes a lot of wishful reading to construe those passages to indicate papal infallibility.(Otherwise the Protestants would believe it too, wouldn’t they).

At most we can say that Christ promised that the Church would never fail

 

[Abu]

razredge
was Humani Generis infallible?

No document is infallible.

And the truth does change, the truth of slavery, usury, purpose of sex etc. have all changed.

All false as you should know by now, and never any verification…
The prejudices that you so glaringly repeat are legion – to Christ’s transference of His authority to Peter alone:
*“You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church.” (Mt 16:18)
“The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”(Mt 16:18)
“I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven." ( Mt 16:19)
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” (Mt 16:19)

And as sole authority:
“Strengthen your brethren.” (Lk 22:32)
“Feed My sheep.”(Jn 21:17).*
All you can offer is:

Again, it takes a lot of wishful reading to construe those passages to indicate papal infallibility.(Otherwise the Protestants would believe it too, wouldn’t they).

False – that’s your hang-up – wishful feeling – that God couldn’t possibly mean what He said!
Having commissioned Peter as His first Vicar, Jesus instructed the eleven and proclaimed: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations….teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…” (Mt 28:18-20)

Since Jesus wrote nothing, and His Church gave us the Bible. She alone has the sole authority to correctly interpret it with the authority received from Christ.

Those that didn’t like some of Christ’s teaching chose to substitute their own ideas – just like you – Henry VIII, Luther, Calvin – that’s why, like you, they don’t believe the truth of infallibility. Of those Protestants who see the fullness of truth in the Catholic Church many join Her, like Scott Hahn, and they become real defenders of the faith in the apostolate of the laity.

At most we can say that Christ promised that the Church would never fail

What you are saying, in effect, is that God didn’t know what He was doing when He expressly handed over His authority to teach without error. What we know and show is precisely what the Christ gave us, much more than your fantasy.

You would deny St John and St Paul too.
The Church is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth (1 Tim 3:16).” St. Paul says also, “through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places (Eph 3:10).” The Church teaches even the angels! This is with the authority of Christ!

 

[Abu]

Fr Stanley Jaki shows that the reality of the infallibility of the Bishop of Rome was expressed even by the far-out Protestant theologian Adolph von Harnack, with reference to the first century! Those who know nothing of history can now learn from history. The Infallibility and primacy of The Vicar of Christ was not disputed in Christ’s Church from the beginning.

About Pope Victor I’s declaration by edict, about the year 200, that any local Church that failed to conform with Rome was excluded from the union with the one Church by heresy, none other than Adolph von Harnack admitted that Victor I was “recognised, in his capacity of bishop of Rome, as the special guardian of the ‘common unity’… " (See And On This Rock, p 118, 1987, Trinity Communications, Fr Stanley L Jaki).

Already, Peter had exercised his supreme authority in the upper room before Pentecost to have Judas’ place filled. At the first Apostolic Council of Jerusalem Peter settled the heated discussion over circumcising the gentiles and “the whole assembly fell silent” (Acts 15:7-12). Paul made sure that his ministry to the gentiles was recognised by, Peter (Gal 1:I8).

Harnack asked: “How would Victor have ventured on such an edict – though indeed he had not the power of enforcing it in every case – unless the special prerogative of Rome to determine the conditions of the ‘common unity’ in the vital questions of faith had been an acknowledged and well-established fact?”

 

[Joel_PF]

Let’s not derail the thread!

The subject is contraception. I think a good question is: are there cogent arguments against any and all uses of contraception other than that it would deny papal infallibility?

Chrono 13, I think your stoical interpretation of Christian thought is wrong, particularly when it comes to St. Thomas. He was ok with pleasure playing a part in the motivation of sex; that is the purpose of pleasure in the first place (and pleasure is in itself good and natural). When he spoke of lust, or even concupiscence as a whole, he didn’t mean any movement of the concupisciple powers, but disordered, or excessive, movements. Outside of marriage, any sexual desire was seen as disordered; but not within marriage. I will get the relevant quotes in the near future to better make my case.

The Church Fathers were more influenced by stoicism; St. Thomas was much less, even though he felt compelled to use patristic terminology, which makes him sound harsher than he really is.

About contraception specifically: There are arguments against it other than the “you must not separate reproductive from unitive”: mainly those of the school of John Finnis and Germain Grisez, and also that of philosopher Martin Rhonheimer. I have some familiarity with the first, not with the second. Does anyone know it?

 

[Joel_PF]

As for infallibility being in check if contraception is ever allowed, that doesn’t seem a very good argument.

After all, other things such as the condemnation of religious freedom (Pius IX in Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of errors) was affirmed in a much more assertive and definitive way, and has since been rejected by later Popes. Benedict XVI has made the promotion of religious freedom one of the goals of his pontificate, especially in relations with Islam.

 

[Abu]

Facing Reality
The Church has consistently upheld marriage and the marital act against the contraceptive and abortive practices of the pagans from Her foundation by Christ.

The Stoic fantasy of the nonsignificance of the individual, totally opposed to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, is clear:
“The crucial importance of the concept of ‘person’, naturally knowable and yet unknown outside the Judeo-Christian lineage, is seen in the impossibility of finding any save social (Natural) significance for the individual in other frameworks of thought. Thus, e.g., the statisms of Plato and Aristotle; thus, the nonsignificance of the individual in Stoic and Hindu thought…” (Fr Paul Quay, S.J., in Contraception And Conjugal Love, in Why Humanae Vitae Was Right, ed. Dr Janet E Smith, p 23).

In post #150 we have seen St Paul, St Augustine and the Council of Trent emphasizing love and responsibility in marriage.

The DIDACHE, one of the earliest written disciplinary documents from the infant Church (100-150 A.D.) condemned both abortion and contraception which were common in the surrounding pagan world, as excommunicable offences. The Fathers of the Church who addressed these issues “universally applied Gal 5:20, and Rev 21:8 and 22:15 in their condemnation of these practices.” These included Justin Martyr, Origen, Lactantius, Epiphanius, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine. (Trial, Tribulation and Triumph, Desmond A Birch, Queenship Publishing, 1996, p 334).

“Before the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria wrote the masterful catechetical treatise Paidagogos, which synthesized the pattern of Christian education in the East and North Africa in the first generation after the Apostles. It also reflects a very balanced attitude toward marriage. On the one hand, Clement defended marriage and marital intercourse as good and holy. Thus he said that marital ‘love tends toward sexual relations by its very nature,” and “sometimes nature denies them (husband and wife) the opportunity to perform the marriage act so that it may be all the more desirable because it is delayed.”

The heresy of Manichaeism wrongly made a devastating distinction between marriage as an institution and sexual intercourse as a legitimate bodily action to which people are irresistibly driven by the Deity who reigns over the material world, and the infatuation with contraception of the followers of Manichaeism was rebutted by St Augustine.

The Decretals of Pope Gregory IX (1148-1241) summarise the Church’s legislation:
The decree on contraception identifies it with any action to prevent generation, conception, or birth; it distinguishes between taking a drug out of lust (instead of abstaining from intercourse) and taking a drug from hostile motives; and it calls all of these actions homicidal, in the technical sense of intending to destroy life at any stage of the vital process. (V, 12, 5). (See The Catholic Catechism, Fr John A Hardon, S.J., Doubleday, 1975, p 368-370).

If we refer to the Roman Catechism, (commonly known as the Catechism of the Council of Trent), as presented under the heading “The Motives and Ends of Marriage,” the following statement is found:
“We have now to explain why man and woman should be joined in marriage. First of all, nature itself by an instinct implanted in both sexes impels them to such companionship, and this is further encouraged by the hope of mutual assistance in bearing more easily the discomforts of life and the infirmities of old age.”
rtforum.org/lt/lt144.html

 

[Abu]

Joel PF
After all, other things such as the condemnation of religious freedom (Pius IX in Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of errors) was affirmed in a much more assertive and definitive way, and has since been rejected by later Popes.

The false idea of contradictions in doctrine, previously sought in slavery (false) etc., is now attached to Pius IX. All of these are dispelled by the facts, but they continue to bedevil, and be promoted, by the confused who have not sought the facts.

rtforum.org/lt/lt9.html#II
**Pius IX, Vatican II And Religious Liberty **
by Fr Brian W. Harrison
“In short, all Catholics who love and honour the Church’s Magisterium can take heart. We do not have to rest content with the none-too-reassuring position that Vatican II has not been ‘proven guilty’ of contradicting Pope Pius IX’s Quanta Cura. Once we read the relevant documents with due care, in the original Latin, with a correct historical understanding of what they intended by the choice of certain expressions, and bearing in mind the crucial distinction between the Church’s doctrine on the one hand, and her mutable public law on the other, only one verdict is possible: the Council is ‘proved innocent’ of that charge.”

rtforum.org/lt/lt16.html#II
Religious Liberty: “Rights” versus “Tolerance”
by Fr Brian W. Harrison
“Thus, the Council insisted that religious liberty is a right in the strict sense of the word, not merely a currently opportune provision of positive civil law. However, this did not involve contradicting the traditional doctrine that the propagation of false religions was something that the civil power might “tolerate.” What it amounted to was a genuinely new doctrinal development which posited something which at first sight seems paradoxical: a right to be tolerated. That expression was not used by the Council - doubtless in order to avoid confusion, and to give added emphasis to what was new in the doctrine (the part that the modern world wanted to hear) rather than what was traditional. But this is nonetheless what the teaching of *Dignitatis Humanae *amounts to. The “right to be tolerated” is not a self-contradictory expression, because the idea of “tolerance” towards a certain activity does not necessarily imply that the authority tolerating it has the right to suppress it; it need imply no more than that the authority regards the activity as evil (at least in some respects) and has the physical power to suppress it.”

 

[Joel_PF]

According to Pius IX the State HAS the right to suppress false religions. Sorry, the very paragraphs you quoted show the different positions.

It turns out that Pius IX opinions expressed in Quanta Cura on religious liberty and freedom of conscience were not infallible, that’s all. There’s no point in trying to circumvent that, unless we interpret his words in a way completely different to what he himself intended and clearly stated (does anyone actually believe that Pius IX thought that adherents of heresies had a right to be tolerated?? If that is so, then there is absolutely no teaching that cannot be reconciled to its opposite teaching given a loose enough interpretation).

 

[Good_Daughter]

Previous ethical approach didn’t see procreation as something that needs to be kept, but intended in order for act to be sinless.

Some couples would have found it impossible to intend conception (ie. pregnancy, menopause). Are you saying the Fathers prohibited relations for these married couples?

Even stronger. Origen claimed allegorical interpretation is the real one, but reading can trigger lustful thoughts. People were advised not to read Song of Songs until they gain control of their sensual desires.

Many things can trigger lustful thoughts (art, literature, walking down the street), that doesn’t make them inherently bad. Even if the allegorical interpretation is the real one, that still doesn’t condemn the narrative.

Second Council of Constantinople decided that whoever interprets Song of Songs as celebration of marital love is excommunicated. One of many proofs what was really taught about sex.

Are you able to provide a link to your source so I can read it for myself?

But woman is not considered infertile if she is in infertile period. She is infertile if she can’t beget a child due to reasons which have nothing to do with her cycle- such as age, or even injury.

Practically speaking, all types of infertility have the same effect.

 

[Good_Daughter]

Of course not, but it does show that the supposed ‘intrinsic moral evil’ of contraception is not apparent to the vast majority of Catholics - unlike say abortion or murder.

I agree with you there, but let’s not be naive about the number of Catholics who don’t see the intrinsic moral evil of abortion.

Woyjtyla was suggesting the implications of the Church changing its stance on artificial contraception. (Though as Chrono has brought up, the Church has already changed it’s stance seeing as it allowed NFP which was also condemned by the Church Fathers)

Woyjtyla would’ve been addressing an audience for whom papal infallibilty was a given. He was attatching contraceptive teaching to that given. Chrono13 believes, but has yet to show that the Church has changed its stance.

Gee, you are close minded - NFP does separate sex and reproduction!, p(name removed by moderator)ointing or no p(name removed by moderator)ointing (plus to do this p(name removed by moderator)ointing requires modern science just like the Pill)

Hey, we’ve come around to the thread topic. How does NFP separate sex and reproduction? (To be clear, I have nothing against modern science.)

At least their statement was better than the minority statement which basically spelled out that they couldn’t change teaching due to the implications it would have on infallibility.

Plus only 4 priests (out of 16), 2 bishops (out of 9), 1 cardinal (out of 7 - who also opposed religious liberty and separation of Church & state) opposed the majority verdict (mainly due to infallibility)
So once again, your views on the morality of artificial contraception are in the minority here.

My views on most things are in the minority. Do you have a good online source for the minority statement?

Possibly, but if there was - someone would amend it, you don’t have articles on Catholic topics written without the involvement of Catholics. But if you can check their citations and come up with anything they’ve missed, then please share.

And the truth does change, the truth of slavery, usury, purpose of sex etc. have all changed.

You have more faith in Wikipedia than I do, but some of the sources it provides can be helpful. I won’t speak to anything but purpose of sex, do you think that has really changed or just that Church teaching has changed?

Sure, but the divine authority to preach the Gospel, cast out demons and forgive sins doesn’t get you to divine infallibility

Exactly, they’re all different gifts.

 

[rstuv]

It’s simple.

We are not to thwart God’s design for the marital act. Period.

I am not familiar with RCC teachings so can someone direct me to where and how God’s design for the marital act is defined.

 

[Abu]

Joel PF
According to Pius IX the State HAS the right to suppress false religions. Sorry, the very paragraphs you quoted show the different positions.…… Pius IX opinions expressed in Quanta Cura on religious liberty and freedom of conscience were not infallible, that’s all.

“In short, the Church had never taught that government may suppress religious error simply because it is erroneous; but only insofar as the error is judged to be seriously harmful to the common good of society.”
See: rtforum.org/lt/lt57.html

The declaration re religious liberty that “relates to what punitive measures are proportionate to preventing some evil” – the efficacy of means to ends, is not doctrine, but not merely an “opinion”.

The doctrine is that the common good will always require some restriction above that required to merely maintain public peace.

The “liberty of conscience and worship” which Pius XI condemns involves an unlimited freedom of propaganda against the doctrines of Lammenais and his followers who preached an “absolute” exemption from censorship and an “unlimited” freedom to diffuse error.

For Vatican II, “However, this did not involve contradicting the traditional doctrine that the propagation of false religions was something that the civil power might “tolerate.” What it amounted to was a genuinely new doctrinal development which posited something which at first sight seems paradoxical: a right to be tolerated. (Post #227).

Neither the Popes nor Vatican II contradict previous doctrine.

 

[Abu]

rstuv
I am not familiar with RCC teachings so can someone direct me to where and how God’s design for the marital act is defined.

See: scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s2c2a6.htm#2363
III. THE LOVE OF HUSBAND AND WIFE
From #2360. You should find what you want here in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Ask if in doubt.

 

[Chrono13]

Do you know where in the canons that anathema is located? I didn’t see it after perusing the text.

Second Council of Constantinople.

.

As far as we go in canon structure, you are right. There is no direct reference to Song of Songs. However, Council came in order to analyze writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia. His assertion that Song of Songs should be interpreted as a love poem celebrating marital bond was seen as part of his heresy. You can’t see that from sources surrounding the canons.

faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/22-SongOfSongs/Text/Articles/Davidson-SongofSongs-AUSS.htm

 

[Chrono13]

Chrono 13, I think your stoical interpretation of Christian thought is wrong, particularly when it comes to St. Thomas. He was ok with pleasure playing a part in the motivation of sex; that is the purpose of pleasure in the first place (and pleasure is in itself good and natural). When he spoke of lust, or even concupiscence as a whole, he didn’t mean any movement of the concupisciple powers, but disordered, or excessive, movements. Outside of marriage, any sexual desire was seen as disordered; but not within marriage. I will get the relevant quotes in the near future to better make my case.

As I said, Thomas is mysterious. He speaks of benefits and pleasure, and all of the sudden forbids “lustful” kisses (by “lustful” he meant those which are not among relatives or customary). What is disordered with husband kissing his wife, even during intercourse?

About contraception specifically: There are arguments against it other than the “you must not separate reproductive from unitive”: mainly those of the school of John Finnis and Germain Grisez, and also that of philosopher Martin Rhonheimer. I have some familiarity with the first, not with the second. Does anyone know it?

I know about their writings, but frankly, I forgot what they said.

 

[Chrono13]

Facing Reality
The Church has consistently upheld marriage and the marital act against the contraceptive and abortive practices of the pagans from Her foundation by Christ.

Actually, clergy adopted pagan philosophy in order to ban contraception.

The Stoic fantasy of the nonsignificance of the individual, totally opposed to the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, is clear:
“The crucial importance of the concept of ‘person’, naturally knowable and yet unknown outside the Judeo-Christian lineage, is seen in the impossibility of finding any save social (Natural) significance for the individual in other frameworks of thought. Thus, e.g., the statisms of Plato and Aristotle; thus, the nonsignificance of the individual in Stoic and Hindu thought…” (Fr Paul Quay, S.J., in Contraception And Conjugal Love, in Why Humanae Vitae Was Right, ed. Dr Janet E Smith, p 23).

Now, why- all of the sudden- you speak of individualism in this discussion?

In post #150 we have seen St Paul, St Augustine and the Council of Trent emphasizing love and responsibility in marriage.

And we have seen that Paul never speaks of things Augustine does, and Council of Trent simply stated contraception is wrong- hiding it’s logic behind the canon.

The DIDACHE, one of the earliest written disciplinary documents from the infant Church (100-150 A.D.) condemned both abortion and contraception which were common in the surrounding pagan world, as excommunicable offences.

Long shot. Didache forbids usage of “medical potions” and they were not used only for contraception, but things like curing infertility or sterility.

The Fathers of the Church who addressed these issues “universally applied Gal 5:20, and Rev 21:8 and 22:15 in their condemnation of these practices.” These included Justin Martyr, Origen, Lactantius, Epiphanius, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine. (Trial, Tribulation and Triumph, Desmond A Birch, Queenship Publishing, 1996, p 334).

Hopefully, Desmond A Birch will one day explain why he thinks stoics as Justin, Lactantius, Jerome or Augustine would defend his position. There is not much of a triumph without that.

“Before the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria wrote the masterful catechetical treatise Paidagogos, which synthesized the pattern of Christian education in the East and North Africa in the first generation after the Apostles. It also reflects a very balanced attitude toward marriage. On the one hand, Clement defended marriage and marital intercourse as good and holy. Thus he said that marital ‘love tends toward sexual relations by its very nature,” and “sometimes nature denies them (husband and wife) the opportunity to perform the marriage act so that it may be all the more desirable because it is delayed.”

Clement who, in Paidagogogs, wrote *“husbands should take their women moderately and **only **for rising of the children?” Who wrote “To indulge in intercourse without **intending **children is to outrage the nature?” *

The Decretals of Pope Gregory IX (1148-1241) summarise the Church’s legislation:
The decree on contraception identifies it with any action to prevent generation, conception, or birth; it distinguishes between taking a drug out of lust (instead of abstaining from intercourse) and taking a drug from hostile motives; and it calls all of these actions homicidal, in the technical sense of intending to destroy life at any stage of the vital process. (V, 12, 5). (See The Catholic Catechism, Fr John A Hardon, S.J., Doubleday, 1975, p 368-370).

Surely, measuring your temperature in order to prevent generation would be forbidden.

One wonders why Humanae Vitae didn’t want to quote this pope in it’s forth footnote. It would be a good addition to the argument.

If we refer to the Roman Catechism, (commonly known as the Catechism of the Council of Trent), as presented under the heading “The Motives and Ends of Marriage,” the following statement is found:
“We have now to explain why man and woman should be joined in marriage. First of all, nature itself by an instinct implanted in both sexes impels them to such companionship, and this is further encouraged by the hope of mutual assistance in bearing more easily the discomforts of life and the infirmities of old age.”

This speaks of marriage, not marital act.

 

[Chrono13]

Some couples would have found it impossible to intend conception (ie. pregnancy, menopause). Are you saying the Fathers prohibited relations for these married couples?

No. There was something called “marital debt”. You were supposed to give yourself to your spouse if he can’t control his drive- but this was seen as “helping in the weakness”, not “enjoying unitive marriage bond”

Many things can trigger lustful thoughts (art, literature, walking down the street), that doesn’t make them inherently bad. Even if the allegorical interpretation is the real one, that still doesn’t condemn the narrative.

You and I think that. However, Church in the past was more strict.

Are you able to provide a link to your source so I can read it for myself?

This can be a good start:
faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/22-SongOfSongs/Text/Articles/Davidson-SongofSongs-AUSS.htm

Practically speaking, all types of infertility have the same effect.

But infertility in the circle is not infertility. It is like saying food is rotten if it is not being eaten.

 

[razredge]

No document is infallible.

Sigh - yes, but is the teaching laid out in the document infallible?

As for infallibility being in check if contraception is ever allowed, that doesn’t seem a very good argument.

It’s not a good argument, but that’s the reason given by the minority report of the Pontifical Commission into Birth Control

I agree with you there, but let’s not be naive about the number of Catholics who don’t see the intrinsic moral evil of abortion.

Yes, but these are a definite minority unlike the majority of both clergy and laypeople on contraception.

We also have to distinguish between Catholics who reject abortion under all circumstances and those who think abortion is permissible under some circumstances. (I also just found out that there is quite some evidence to suggest that embryos don’t have souls)

Woyjtyla would’ve been addressing an audience for whom papal infallibilty was a given. He was attatching contraceptive teaching to that given. Chrono13 believes, but has yet to show that the Church has changed its stance.

Yes, that is why the prime reason in the minority report (coauthored by him) was the implications any change in stance would have on infallibility.

I think Chrono13 has shown quite clearly that the Church has changed (or reinterpreted) its stance on contraception and the purpose of sex. At the very least you have to admit that a unbiased observer reading the Church Fathers would agree with his arguments.

Hey, we’ve come around to the thread topic. How does NFP separate sex and reproduction? (To be clear, I have nothing against modern science.)

Because you cannot conceive while using NFP (indeed you have less chance of conceiving than some artificial forms of contraception)

My views on most things are in the minority. Do you have a good online source for the minority statement?

But likely not a minority within your religion - the fact that the majority of priests, bishops & cardinals supported the majority view (and remember these are old men in the 1960s, not hippies) and that the only Cardinal to dissent also opposed religious liberty and separation of church and state is speaks volumes of the ‘intrinsic evil’ of birth control. (Of course you could get around this by saying the Holy Spirit only works within certain members of the clergy and not others )

I found it here, there are citations for the statement but they come from books - they may be online elsewhere though:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Commission_on_Birth_Control

You have more faith in Wikipedia than I do, but some of the sources it provides can be helpful. I won’t speak to anything but purpose of sex, do you think that has really changed or just that Church teaching has changed?

Wikipedia is quite accurate these days - there only really was a problem in the first couple of years where editing rules and moderation were laxer. In my experience, it tends to have less bias and presents opposing viewpoints more fairly than many other sites (including Catholic ones).

 

[MarcoPolo]

His assertion that Song of Songs should be interpreted as a love poem celebrating marital bond was seen as part of his heresy. You can’t see that from sources surrounding the canons.

Ok. You said earlier:

Second Council of Constantinople decided that whoever interprets Song of Songs as celebration of marital love is excommunicated.

So if I understand you correctly, even though the council does not mention Songs, sex, or marriage, they still were addressing it by way of criticizing “heretical writings” of Theodore (such as his dividing Christ from God, can. 12)----therefore they must have been talking about anything he wrote, including his interpretation of Songs?

Before I embrace your claim, I would need a much more specific citation. The link you provided seems to make the same leap, assuming the council must have had Theodore’s “Songs” interpretation in mind.

 

[Joel_PF]

The “liberty of conscience and worship” which Pius XI condemns involves an unlimited freedom of propaganda against the doctrines of Lammenais and his followers who preached an “absolute” exemption from censorship and an “unlimited” freedom to diffuse error.

It involves much more than that! Have you never read the Syllabus of errors?

Here are two of the errors condemned:

"77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship. – Allocution “Nemo vestrum,” July 26, 1855.

1. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship. – Allocution “Acerbissimum,” Sept. 27, 1852."

It is not against the public worship and propagation of some fringe cult. It is against the very toleration of religious minorities like protestants building their churches in Catholic countries.

For Vatican II, “However, this did not involve contradicting the traditional doctrine that the propagation of false religions was something that the civil power might “tolerate.” What it amounted to was a genuinely new doctrinal development which posited something which at first sight seems paradoxical: a right to be tolerated. (Post #227).

This “right to be tolerated” is development that contradicted what Piux IX and many popes before him said. And guess what? Pius IX was wrong. Yes, it has been wisely decided by law in some Catholic countries that non-Catholics enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship.

It IS indeed expedient that the Catholic Faith is no longer the only religion allowed by the State.

Remember: St. Thomas defended the use of physical compulsion against heretics. He was wrong. Many popes agreed with him. They were wrong too. Now we know better. End of story.

Don’t try to spin it an conciliate what is obviously a change of position. Of a position that had never been (and could never be) infallibly declared.